Fearless Friday, Trees Workshop

the Painted Apron

5 years ago

Last weekend I took a 2 day acrylic painting workshop,

The instructor was local artist,

Melanie Morris

She has an impressionist painting style

and is a master at mixing colors

Taking an art class is such a great way to recharge your batteries,

learn, practice, or just create

The workshop, Trees, was at a local art store,

Alabama Art Supply

It has adjacent dedicated studio space

We all had our own easel, side table and chair, and we were given a list of supplies to bring,

and asked to bring photos of trees

There was also a “classroom” area

where the instructor did demonstrations

Melanie likes to paint with a Sta-Wet palette

This palette is basically a plastic box with a sponge that you wet

and place a special wet palette paper on top

The paint is mixed with an equal amount of medium gel gloss

and a drop of retarder, which helps retard drying

It has a lid that seals tightly when not in use,

and with proper care,

acrylic paint will stay soft for weeks!

We were asked to use a limited palette of Cad yellow, Cad orange, Cad red medium, Alizarian Crimson, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Zinc White, Titanium white, Phalo Blue {green shade} and Dioxazine Purple {added after I took photo}

We mixed all the greens and other tones from these colors

After setting up our palette, and making color charts we watched Melanie do a demonstration painting

She prefers a red underpainting for landscapes and uses a charcoal stick to do the initial sketch

She paints from dark to light

laying in the darkest areas first, then the next darkest etc.

She paints the sky, or the negative spaces, last

Up close you can see the individual shapes and how she lets the underpainting show through

I truly had to “Be Fearless,”

as this is such a different way of painting for me!

I did my sketch with a brush and a brownish green paint color

We also painted on Ampersand gessoboard, you can read about it here

You can see the brush strokes in my painting below because the surface of gessoboard is very slick, and the way we mixed the paint made it thin, so the underpainting shows through in many places

“Weeping Willow study” 6″ x 6″ acrylic on 3/4″ cradled Ampersand board

Melanie uses layers of color to build her painting, much like a watercolor process. I prefer to use thicker applications of paint and found this method tedious, but I am an impatient painter!

For the second painting, I used just a section of one of my tree photos because my board was only 3″ x 5!”

Super small, and again very uncomfortable for me!

“Tree Trunk study” acrylic, 3″ x 5″ flat profile ampersand board

We were only given a short time to complete our paintings which is why I wasn’t able to do step by step photos

For the final painting, she let us go a little bigger, whew 😅

The end of class was nearing,

I decided to pack up and let my painting dry

while watching Melanie’s final demo

I finished my painting at home

“Weeping Willow” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on Ampersand gessoboard

I also did one more tree in marker and ink

After taking this class, I will forever look at trees a different way!

I really enjoyed this workshop, trying new things and painting with artists from all over the South…there was a woman from Memphis, South Carolina, and several other parts of Alabama and Georgia. Melanie does classes all over the southeast, you can see her class schedule on her website here

Even though Melanie and I have different painting philosophies and styles, she is a wonderful teacher, she’s funny, laid back and I enjoyed every minute. I hope to take another workshop with her soon.

This is a painting I did several years ago, mimicking her style, you can see the step by step process here

Melanie’s Flowers 14″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas